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MOBILE PRODUCTION

Videohouse OB14

Euro Media Group is one of the leading providers of creative and technical services to the broadcast industry, incorporating several large broadcast service providers across northern Europe. OB14 is the group’s latest 10-camera outside broadcast truck and was recently completed by its Belgian division, Videohouse, for use at major sport and concert productions throughout Europe. Rather than simply replicate previous designs, Videohouse’s in-house system integrator, ProjectBuilders, reconsidered the design of this category of mobile production unit to create a radically new design incorporating many new features.

Belgian celebrity and TV host Marcel Vanthilt took his popular summer ‘pop-up’ magazine show concept to two cities this year – Roeselare and Knokke-Heist - both of which staged Hotel M for a number of weeks throughout the summer. An elaborate Hotel M set designed by Pièce Montée was constructed as the studio facility and backdrop to the daily magazine programme broadcast on national TV channel EEN, concluding each evening with a live music performance. Lighting for the stage area on the set comprised 35 x Robe ROBIN LEDWash 300s. These were specified by the show’s Lighting Designer Michiel Milbou, one of Belgium’s leading TV LDs. This was the fifth edition of this show that he has lit and the third year running that LEDWashes were specified to light the band stage.

STUDIO PRODUCTION

twofour54 Partners with FGB Arena for Film and TV Productions

twofour54, the commercial arm of the Media Zone Authority – Abu Dhabi, has entered into a partnership with First Gulf Bank Arena (FGBA) to promote and utilise the venue for TV and film projects in the Emirate. FGBA is the latest addition to twofour54 intaj’s growing list of production locations and will be the venue for the MBC Action’s Desert Force mixed martial arts (MMA) championship being held in Abu Dhabi for the first time on August 25. As part of the agreement, twofour54 intaj will provide full production services for the venue including the use of nine HD cameras, mobile studio equipment, post production facilities and crew on an on-going basis.

NRJ TV has recently purchased a HARMAN Studer Vista 1 digital console for its television control room. NRJ TV has a television control room and two studios to manage the production of its NRJ 12 channels, Chérie 25 and NRJ Hits. Both channels broadcast news and live shows every day. According to Cédric Drapeau, Technical Manager, it was important to upgrade to a console that could sustain the network’s production growth. “We have a variety of programming that takes place here at NRJ 12 and Chérie 25, so we need equipment that provides a high level of versatility to meet our varying needs,” he said. To that end, NRJ chose the Studer Vista 1 digital console, which fits perfectly into the network’s technical environment.

Finland’s commercial TV network MTV has begun an extensive restructuring of its business and brands.The broadcaster has announced two strategic partnerships, one with Ericsson and one with Valve; and the division of MTV Oy into two entities, MTV Sisällöt and MTV Oy. MTV’s new strategic partner Ericsson will be establishing an international media centre within MTV’s premises in Pasila, in suburban Helsinki. MTV’s television broadcast operations and material management, as well as its television technology development and support employees will be transferring to the new center. In addition, MTV’s news and sports studios, as well as the television technical systems for OTT-services will be moving to Ericsson.

SPORTS

Start Your Streaming and Recording Engine!

Racing fans can’t get enough of their sport, and MotorSportsBroadcasting.com is happy to give them the action they crave in live webcasts and on-demand viewing. High-quality HD production at minimal cost is the responsibility of President of Operations Sam Provencher. Challenges abound. Streaming from a different location each weekend means that equipment has to be entirely mobile. Internet connectivity in the rural areas where most racetracks are located can be problematic. Quick, easy setup is a necessity. And reliability is paramount. After extensive research into online video delivery platforms and H.264 encoders, Provencher settled on StreamVu as his service provider and the Matrox Monarch HD streaming and recording appliance they recommended.

The 22nd European Athletics Championships in Zürich crossed the milestone of 1,000 hours of live television coverage, with 35 international broadcasters from across Europe televiseing the biggest athletics event of the year. Host broadcaster was Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) and broadcasters taking the feed included BBC UK, NRK Norway, France Télévisions, NOS Netherlands, YLE Finland, RAI Italy, ARD and ZDF in Germany, TV4 Sweden and TVP Poland. Pan-European channel Eurosport showed the majority of the championships live across its 59 territories. Outside Europe, the event was broadcasted by Eurosport Asia.

Ferri Lighting Design & Associates (FLDA) today announced that it has designed and installed 100% outdoor LED lighting setups for ESPN’s 2014 U.S. Open telecasts. The expanded installation includes four outdoor locations, which include the ESPN Domestic and International announce booths; and three locations in the main stadium at the U.S. Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens in New York City. The FLDA design for ESPN is notable for its ability to leverage a green production standard, using a completely LED installation, and creating enough light to counteract the sun’s brightness for the outdoor interview set. This year marks the sixth U.S. Open that FLDA has collaborated on with ESPN.

SHOWS

Sennheiser Digital 9000 Captures the Sounds and Emotions of “14-18”

The Benelux countries are rapidly making a name for themselves as a hotbed of musicals produced on a giant scale. As “Soldaat van Oranje” continues to wow Dutch audiences in a former aircraft hangar, a new production, “14-18”, is now doing the same in a similarly vast Belgian venue – De Nekkerhal in Mechelen. The production brings the grim reality of Flanders fields to life with an incredible level of intensity and immediacy for the audience, a spectacle helped greatly by Sennheiser’s flagship Digital 9000 wireless microphone system. Set in Western Flanders during the Great War, 14-18 traces the fortunes of three young soldiers caught up in one of the most ruthless and bloody struggles in European history.

David Guetta rocked the house in grand style for his headline slot in The Hangar on Friday night of the 2014 Global Gathering event - the UK's most popular bass-tastic EDM festival - staged at Long Marston Airfield near Stratford-On-Avon, complete with a stunning new visual design created by LD Jonathan "Leggy" Armstrong and Video Director Ben Brett, with over 100 Robe moving lights on the rig! This performance launched a completely new phase of the superstar DJ and music producer's live shows, and the idea was to make a massive sonic and visual impact... even more than usual, for a show known for its spontaneity, pumping energy and full-on sensory rhythmic experience.

A full ATEM live production workflow was used during the French music festival Vieilles Charrues to support on stage performances from internationally renowned artists such as the Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen, Elton John and The Black Keys. Live production specialist Sombrero & Co, who managed all aspect of video production across the festival’s two main stages, used a centralized production hub featuring multiple ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4Ks and a Compact Videohub router for signal distribution. Camera feeds from both stages are taken via optical fiber to ATEM Studio Converters, where they are converted to SDI and fed into the production switchers, via the 40x40 router.

PRODUCTS

Gearhouse Broadcast Upgrades its Entire EVS Fleet

In one of the largest deals of its kind, broadcast services specialist Gearhouse Broadcast is upgrading its 115-strong fleet of EVS machines across its locations worldwide. This upgrade makes Gearhouse Broadcast one of the single largest users of the latest in EVS equipment and workflows in the world. The upgrade includes migrating all of Gearhouse’s EVS kit to the latest 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and means all of its 8-channel XT3 production servers will have onboard low res proxy recording. All EVS equipment will also have the latest XFile 3 software enabling them to manually or automatically archive content from EVS servers to transportable hard drives, and means they can restore content from hard drives to EVS servers. XFile 3 also presents a simpler way of handling file formats and codecs thanks to its built-in transcoding possibilities and allows monitoring for all transfers through one single interface.

Changing generations of computer signals can lead to high follow-up costs. To guarantee a long operating life of existing systems, G&D developed the Bridge function to bridge the gap between analog and digital worlds. When extending and switching computer signals via KVM, the main focus is always on the video signal, the most critical component during transmission. Transmission, however, depends on the video signal since high resolutions and crystal clear images without any latencies are extremely important. In the world of computers, the analog video signal VGA has been playing a leading role for more than two decades. Any resolutions based on VGA were optimised for CRT displays. After the introduction of LCD displays, the analogue signal had to be converted into a digital signal.

ZDF, Germany’s second national public service broadcaster, has invested in a new transmission system based on equipment from DirectOut at their Lerchenberg site. The new installation was inaugurated at the opening of ZDF’s “Fernsehgarten-Saison 2014 (TV Garden season 2014). The program, which has been running every summer since 1986, has just made it into the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-running live, open-air TV show anywhere in the world. The renewed infrastructure means that all audio and video signals are now transmitted via optical fibre to the broadcast centre, with the audio signal transmission being handled by fully redundant MADI lines.

3D/4K ARISING

Kicking off the 2014 season of Canada’s Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack hosted The Queen’s Plate Stakes last month. The event is the longest continuously run stakes race in North America, and this year marked its 155th anniversary. To ensure not a moment of horseracing action was missed, production of the event included use of FOR-A’s FT-ONE 4K variable frame rate camera, used in conjunction with FOR-A’s ZE-ONE 4K extraction system. “We used the FT-ONE to give us a slow-motion replay of the finish for our biggest race of the year, and the camera gave us exactly what we were looking for,” said Andrew Barnhardt, Broadcast Technical Supervisor of the Woodbine Entertainment Group. “With the FOR-A's 4K extraction system, we could select the desired HD framing from the 4K raster to get exactly the shot we wanted.”

Gemini FX, the Chennai-based digital film operation and part of the giant Gemini Industries and Imaging group, has purchased three turnkey Quantel Pablo Rio 4K color and finishing systems. One of the systems is equipped with the Neo color panel, and two with compact Neo Nano panels. Gemini now has a total of 12 Quantel color correction and finishing systems making it the largest Quantel-based post facility in India. Pablo Rio is Quantel's high quality color and finishing system that provides the ultimate productive post workflow. Pablo Rio runs on high performance PC hardware and exploits NVIDIA Maximus multi-GPU technology to deliver true interactivity and maximum productivity, with realtime performance at 4K 60p and beyond. Pablo Rio is available as software only and as a range of Quantel-backed turnkey systems.